StumbleUpon, the addictive internet tool made by an Uber co-founder that brought you to random websites, is shutting down
- The random content discovery tool StumbleUpon is shutting down on June 30.
- It'll be replaced by Mix.com, a similar service that brings you to content you might be interested in.
The content discovery service known as StumbleUpon is shutting its doors on June 30, according to StumbleUpon founder Garrett Camp, writing on Medium on Thursday. Camp is perhaps best known for another company he cofounded: Uber.
StumbleUpon will be moving to Mix.com, a similar content discovery service with more features, and that's more widely available on different web browsers and mobile devices. All StumbleUpon accounts will be moved over to Mix.com.
Some 40 million users, including myself, may have fond memories of stumbling through the internet by incessantly clicking the "Stumble" button - which you could add as an extension on the Firefox web browser. Every time you clicked the Stumble button, a new website would load. Often, you'd be surprised and interested in what you stumbled upon. And if you weren't interested, you'd click the Stumble button again to see what would come next.
The mystery of what would come next was arguably the best part of StumbleUpon. It was a great tool for stumbling onto products, websites, topics, forums, memes, and GIFs that you never would have found without clicking the Stumble button.
At one point, I thought I had stumbled through the entire internet -at least in the interest categories I signed up for while setting up my StumbleUpon account. I started to double and even triple up on content and websites that I had already stumbled on.
Mix.com brings content from topics you're interested in all into one place, much like an aggregator. However, there's less mystery, as all the content you'd normally stumble on is displayed for you to browse through. Still, it's a more efficient way of getting content on topics you're interested in.
Rest in peace, StumbleUpon.